


Exposure

by KissTheBoy7



Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: Coming Out, M/M, Miscommunication, Trans Character, Transphobia, Unresolved Sexual Tension, basically mark is trans and roger doesn't know, but they have a lot of eyesex and mark agonizes over coming out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-26 04:02:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3836305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KissTheBoy7/pseuds/KissTheBoy7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark is transgender. Roger has a tongue piercing. Mark agonizes over these things in relation to each other. (In which Roger makes eyes at Mark, and Mark isn't entirely sure how Roger is still clueless after two years.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exposure

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, another trans!Mark fic... Because there is a serious lack of them and I want to see more, please! Also, let it be known that Mark in this fic wasn't intended to necessarily be a binary trans man, he just kind of had some bad dysphoria and did what he had to to get rid of it, i.e. surgery and hrt. I wrote this on a prompt from someone on tumblr. Enjoy! Review pls?

Mark obsesses. That’s just him, though. Mark is an obsessive person - whether or not this is diagnosable, he’s long since ceased to care.

Every psychologist in the world thinks that his problems are all rooted in his genitals. They ask, and they wheedle, and it always always circles back around to that. The Big Bad Dysphoria problem. It makes his head pound. By the end of it, the only thing Mark cares about is his fucking prescription. That’s what he goes for, anyway. That’s the goal.

Testosterone or bust, right?

What  _matters_ , though, is that Mark has more secrets than he cares to obsess about. And living with Roger, it’s getting damn near impossible to keep them.

What he should have done, he thinks miserably every time he peeks furtively out of the shower to make sure that Roger isn’t there, popping his zits in the mirror and about to get an eyeful, is just come out with it the second he met the guy. This was Roger’s apartment, originally. He had a right to decide who he wanted to live with, and Mark had been the desperate one, homeless for a day and already panicking about it.

In hindsight, he doesn’t know why he’d assumed Roger would be one of those transphobic assholes you meet in skeevy chatrooms and porn sets. It’s just that most people are.

But it’s been almost two years now, and Roger still doesn’t know. He doesn’t notice Mark’s biweekly disappearances or the bandages or the track marks, or the occasional pair of blood-spotted boxers in the wash. He’s not a very observant guy, Roger Davis - sweet, devilish, handsome, caring, exciting to be around? Check and check and check check check.

But he hasn’t noticed.

And Mark is starting to wonder what he’ll even say, if he finds him out.

It wouldn’t be so much of a problem if it weren’t for Angel. Angel had fallen into their lives like a much-needed breath of fresh air, and Mark is eternally envious of her brash approach to gender in general.

Why can’t he be like that? Fuck, it’s not like anyone can tell him he’s wrong - he has his hormones, his diagnosis, even the scars to prove it. (He thanks Benny silently every day for hooking him up with a wad of cash and a discreet doctor, their freshman year of college.)

But every day is one day further from the day that Mark should have said something. Should have confessed, or laid down the law… something.

Because Roger’s got a tongue piercing that makes his skin prickle and a grin that shatters hearts and his eyes are lingering more and more and Mark is going to cry.

This is so not fair! Mark shouldn’t be expected to do this. It’s such a double standard. He’s got half a mind to go strutting bare-ass and dickless through the apartment just to get his point across.

If he gets drunk first, he can blame it on the alcohol…

 _No! God!_ That would be worse. What is he thinking?!

What is Roger thinking?

Mark spends days, weeks, agonizing and obsessing and watching Roger’s lips curve around bottles and cups and his thumbnail when he’s not paying attention, and wanting so hard that his ribs ache.

Roger looks up and winks at him.

_He has no fucking clue._

He’s in despair, he really is. When his parents had found out about the discussions he’d had, once a week every week, with the school psychologist, they’d booted him. He’d barely scraped together the cash to take a few courses at Brown, even though he’d gotten in on a scholarship, and Benny had let him crash in his dorm for the first two semesters.

And then he’d dropped out to pursue His Art, inspired by Professor Collins and his very convincing trail of smoke, and  _then_  he’d met Roger fucking Davis.

Roger seems just as pleased to have Angel around as the rest of them, but Mark isn’t sure that applies to him. After all, he’s not Angel. Angel is a special case no matter who you talk to.

He’s acutely aware that he’s procrastinating. But this has to be perfect.

It has to be perfect if it’s going to happen at all.

At first, it’s kind of funny, almost - poor Mark, so indecisive, God hates him, blah blah. Maureen consoles him with a sticky lipstick kiss that he has a hard time scrubbing off his forehead later. Time passes, though, always passes, and it starts to drag him down.

Roger’s been staring at him longingly, quirking his eyebrows in invitation, for at least three months. And Mark  _wants_.

And Mark can’t.

He thinks about his parents, the betrayed look on his sister’s face when his father had pushed him away, stony-faced, every one of his possessions strewn violently across the lawn. He remembers the last words Benny had uttered in their falling out - “it’s not like you’re really a guy, anyways.”

None of them had any right.

Roger’s not like them.

But the possibility is still there.

Mark sinks into depression like he’s fifteen again and hates himself almost as much as he had back then. Roger’s eyes flicker over him with increasing concern. Mark just hugs himself and looks away.

In the end, he doesn’t have to do anything. Roger finds out on his own, one morning in July when the AC is hopelessly broken and the nights unbearably humid. Mark, like anyone with sense, takes to sleeping naked just to keep himself from suffocating.

Roger… he doesn’t like to knock.

“Hey - um, Mark?” he says, awkwardly, and Mark peers blearily up at him through his swimming newfound consciousness. “D’you want a milkshake, man? Collins brought the blender back last night. I’m gonna fuck this carton of ice cream up.”

“Um - sure,” Mark croaks, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. His elbow brushes his bare thigh-

He freezes.

Roger is standing there, pretending not to look at him, growing slowly redder.

He scrambles for the covers and starts babbling his panic attack.

“ _Shit_  - Roger, um, fuck-  _fuck_  - I’m sorry, I should have, I mean -” He gasps for air, lightheaded and wishing desperately that he’d never woken up at all. God, he’d rather be dead, anything but this -

“Mark?” Roger says, blinking rapidly.

“Please don’t hate me,” Mark moans.

Roger looks up at the ceiling, pointedly. His voice is strangely even. Mark is jealous. “You want strawberry, right?”

Mark covers his face with his hands and struggles to breathe. There are exercises for this, counting-breathing exercises that he can’t remember for the life of him right now. “Oh my God.”

“Um,” Roger supplies helpfully. Mark peeks through his fingers apprehensively in time to catch him licking his lips, and wants to die all over again. “Mark, dude, I hate to ask, but uh… could you put some pants on? Or something. At least underwear. Please.”

His voice gets strained at the end there and Mark finds his breath at last, nodding and fumbling for his discarded boxers from the night before. He slips into them and tries in vain to feel anything less than utterly exposed. The way he sees it, no method of coming out could possibly have been more awkward than Roger seeing his vagina…

Oh, God.

Holy fucking shit,  _Roger saw his vagina_.

“I’m decent,” he mumbles, trying to smile. He probably looks constipated. Roger looks back at him, relief palpable in the air between them - Mark isn’t sure who it’s coming from. Possibly both of them.

“Thanks,” Roger breathes, eyes trailing back down, seemingly despite his best efforts, to rest at Mark’s waistband. He swallows and rubs at his neck awkwardly. “I don’t - I mean, fuck, you’ve seen me naked, I’m not like - I don’t  _mind_  -” 

He gives a short laugh and shoves his hands into his pockets. Mark is momentarily distracted by his sheer incredulity that Roger is actually wearing jeans right now, when it’s got to be at least eighty degrees.

“I just, uh. Don’t know if I can… I mean, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. Or whatever.” Roger coughs.

Mark stares some more, gripping the sheets for dear life.

“… Are you freaking out? Because I’m freaking out,” he manages, voice tense and too loud in his own ears. God, he wishes Collins were here. Collins had always known. He was registered in Collins’ introductory class under his awful fucking birth name. Collins would know what to do.

Roger squints at him the way that he does when he’s uncomfortable, shifting awkwardly in the doorframe. He’s wearing way too much eyeliner. “… Are you going to be offended if I say yes?”

“A little.” Mark holds his breath. Maybe that will keep his heart from sinking too quickly. His hands are starting to tremble with unwanted rage.

Offended? That’s putting it fucking lightly. Two years of friendship - God, the number of times he’d bleached this asshole’s hair, the number of times he’d dragged him out of the bar before he had one too many, the number of acid trips they’d had together on the living room floor, the tattoos he’d designed, that Roger had actually gone and gotten, that Mark had thought were so  _fucking special_  - did that mean nothing? Does he just not care, that Mark’s a person, that this shouldn’t fucking matter?

He has no idea what Mark’s gone through to get where he is. He has no. Fucking. Clue.

And now he’s staring at Mark warily, and Mark is startled to realize that he’s on his feet, fists clenched, scrawny frame vibrating.

“I’m moving out,” he says, and it’s low and almost dangerous and even so, the look of sheer panic on Roger’s face seems over-the-top.

“What - no! Mark! Fuck, man, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to - you don’t have to move out,” he stammers, stepping back with his hands up in desperate surrender. “God. I’m sorry. I’ve just wanted to - for so long - I thought, fuck.” He looks sick with himself. Mark’s shoulders relax a little, mostly out of confusion. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“But it’s going to be weird now.” It’s Mark’s turn to be awkward. The anger had drained out of him almost as suddenly as it had come on; now he’s just drained, hopeless. Achingly disappointed. This isn’t fair.

“It doesn’t have to be.” Roger gnaws on his lip. His hair is sticking up even more wildly than usual, matted on one side - he hasn’t been up long. He’d probably stumbled straight into Mark’s room to ask him what he wanted for breakfast. “Fuck, Mark, I’m sorry. I’m not gonna be creepy or anything, I swear to God, no means no.”

“No?” Mark’s voice cracks. Belatedly, it occurs to him that Mark might have more than one reason to stare at his naked body. His cheeks are already reddening, mortified. “What - do you mean?”

Roger lowers his hands slowly, still watching him like a kicked puppy. “I didn’t mean to stare. I won’t do it again. It was just - uh- surprising.” He stumbles over the words, as if trying to get them all out before Mark can shut him down. His eyes are fixed on Mark’s chest. “Not, not in a bad way! I just - I mean, God, Mark, I really thought this was a, a mutual thing?”

It’s not like Roger to be so nervous. Even offstage, where he’s significantly less cocky than he’d like to appear, Roger’s got this innate smugness that Mark has always found equally exasperating and absurdly attractive.

The pieces fall together in quick succession. He feels ridiculous.

“Um.” Mark, once again, wishes the floor would open up and swallow him whole. He hesitates and then takes a step forward. “I think - there may have been a miscommunication.”

Roger looks torn between stepping back and reaching for him, guilty and curious. “Are you going to kick my ass now? I might deserve it-”

“Roger,” Mark says, voice cracking like it hasn’t since he was nineteen and ecstatic to be hitting second puberty. “I’ve wanted to kiss you - for so long - I think I might die.”

Roger edges forward, green eyes glowing with cautious hope. “So…?”

“You don’t care? That I’m…?” Mark takes a deep breath. “Trans?”

“I would be kind of a huge asshole if that was a dealbreaker for me,” Roger breathes, starting to grin. He’s back in his element - Mark forcibly restrains a shudder of anticipation, stepping closer again, feeling beautifully vulnerable. He hopes he doesn’t start crying the second Roger touches him, but he can’t make himself any promises.

Roger reaches up, fingers threading through his hair like they always seem to do when he’s drunk and feeling sappy, and bumps their noses together. Mark stifles a watery laugh. “So,” he says, mockingly businesslike. “About that milkshake. One straw, or two?”

“One,” Mark breathes, and grabs his jaw, pulling him down into the sloppiest kiss he’s ever given anyone. Roger’s hands wrap around his slim waist and lift him off the ground, pulling him close with a groan that makes Mark feel like he’s flying.

Kissing Roger is something he really wouldn’t mind obsessing over.


End file.
